The Otaku Spirit Lives Forever

Besides, the Yuan family's young miss surely isn't the only one with status here. The others must have some background too, right? Even if they don't, seeing the Yuan family give a reward, they'd have to cough up something as well, wouldn't they?

After all, those two are disciples of the Tianxuan Sect.

Saved by Tianxuan Sect disciples, they'd have to show some gratitude, right?

Thinking of this, the two gatekeeping cultivators sat comfortably under a large tree. Having contacted their sect and the Yuan family, they willingly stood guard over the field of unconscious people.

These were a field full of rewards!

They had to keep a close eye on them.

Before long, the Yuan family arrived.

Leading them was Yuan Zhiyun's father, the current head of the Yuan family, Yuan Bi.

When Yuan Bi, walking at the forefront, saw his daughter among the people lying on the ground, he immediately waved his hand. Two people behind him stepped forward and, as expected, presented a generous reward to the two gatekeepers.

After checking and confirming that his daughter had no issues other than being unconscious, Yuan Bi scooped up Yuan Zhiyun, thanked the gatekeepers, and hurriedly headed back.

Seeing the Yuan family head leave in such a rush, the two gatekeepers didn't dare speak up to ask him to stay; after all, he was a Golden Core cultivator.

It was just a pity that the people lying on the ground couldn't see the scene of the Yuan family giving a reward, and who knew if they would be self-conscious enough to do the same.

Not long after, Seven Stars Peak of the Tianxuan Sect also sent senior disciples to pick up the young disciple Hu Guanyu.

The other unconscious people, whom the gatekeepers didn't recognize, remained on the ground, waiting to wake up on their own.

At this time, the effects of the Foundation Establishment Takedown drug hadn't worn off yet, so Lin Xiao, feeling bored, took a light nap on the ground.

By early dawn the next day, as the sky began to brighten, he heard some stirring from the unconscious people around him; they were about to wake up.

Thus, Lin Xiao quickly pretended to have just woken up, opening his eyes in a daze and sitting up.

Enduring the heartache, he followed the crowd and paid an average reward of fifty spirit stones, then swiftly fled this place of sorrow.

There were over a hundred people on the ground; just from spirit stones alone, those two gatekeepers must have made nearly five thousand!

On his way back to Yuanling City, Lin Xiao did a quick calculation and suddenly felt quite envious of those two gatekeepers!

They earned more than he did!

And he had even paid the spirit stones for the Foundation Establishment Takedown.

After a brief moment of random envy on his boring journey, Lin Xiao soon returned to Yuanling City.

He first returned to the inn he had stayed at before.

Once settled, he began to ponder how to get his hands on a Heart-Questioning Stone.

Considering that Yuan Zhiyun had just come out of the secret realm unconscious, she probably wouldn't leave her house for the next couple of days, and he couldn't just wait around doing nothing.

He might as well stroll through the markets in Yuanling City first.

Previously, his focus had been entirely on gathering intelligence about the secret realm, so he hadn't paid much attention to these things.

Now that Senior Liao's soul body had been integrated, and he had obtained a Secret Realm Key with a Foundation Establishment realm limit, the harvest from this trip was quite good.

If he could smoothly complete the tasks of getting the Heart-Questioning Stone and expanding his network, he felt he could comfortably hole up in his village for a very long time without any pressure!

Thinking of this, Lin Xiao felt as if he had been injected with chicken blood, wishing he could finish all these tasks immediately and then instantly return to Xiushui Village to become a shut-in.

All his explosive bursts of diligence were just to ensure his shut-in soul could endure forever.

After resting for a while, Lin Xiao pocketed his spirit stone pouch and went out shopping.

There were several markets in Yuanling City, with the largest one located in the west of the city.

This market had a vast number of shops of all sizes.

However, he didn't see any shop selling Heart-Questioning Stones.

It made sense; after all, this kind of thing was generally only needed by organizations like sects to test the character of their disciples. Ordinary people rarely had any use for it, so naturally, no one would go through the great trouble of transporting a few heavy stones from far away just to sell them.

But even though no one sold this item, it wasn't a particularly rare or precious object, so he could still inquire about its rough price.

Lin Xiao first took a stroll around the area. Using the sale of a small amount of Ice Stone Grass as an icebreaker, he struck up conversations with the owners of some small shops, learning about the price of the Heart-Questioning Stone and casually gathering information on the general market trends for common categories.

Then, completely satisfied, he left the shops without buying a single thing.

Those shop owners even enthusiastically waved goodbye, welcoming him to come back next time.

After his inquiries, Lin Xiao gained an understanding of the Heart-Questioning Stone's price and realized it wasn't fixed.

If one were in Heart-Questioning City near the Heart-Questioning Cliff, the price would be very low, only a little over a hundred spirit stones per piece.

If it weren't for the miasma at the bottom of the Heart-Questioning Cliff, the occasional low-level demonic beasts roaming nearby, and the fact that each stone was quite bulky—too large to fit into the narrow opening of the lowest-grade storage bags—it wouldn't even sell for over a hundred spirit stones.

But precisely because these Heart-Questioning Stones could only be found under the Heart-Questioning Cliff, making them an irreplaceable local specialty, the farther away they were, the higher their price became.

Take Yuanling City, for example.

Because Yuanling City was very far from the location of the Heart-Questioning Cliff, ordering a Heart-Questioning Stone from a shop wouldn't cost just one or two hundred spirit stones.

The price would directly increase tenfold.

It would be at least one thousand two hundred spirit stones.

However, despite this, and even though it seemed like the profit margin for the Heart-Questioning Stone was quite large, no one actually made a living by transporting and selling them.

Because, in truth, aside from very rare and special circumstances, who would buy such a useless stone just for fun?

Only some newly established small sects or new families would need them.

But generally, those who started such factions had the ability to fetch the Heart-Questioning Stones themselves.

Moreover, building a sect or a family wasn't like playing house; it was impossible to have this kind of demand every single day.

Therefore, the market for the Heart-Questioning Stone was extremely narrow.

Thus, no one really did this business.

After learning this information, Lin Xiao gave up the idea of trading with Yuan Zhiyun for a Heart-Questioning Stone.

Since Yuan Zhiyun was the young miss of a major family, she couldn't just be carrying a Heart-Questioning Stone around for no reason; she definitely had a use for it.

If he rashly approached her and said he wanted to trade for the Heart-Questioning Stone in her storage bag...

First of all, it would be very difficult to explain how he knew she had one, and approaching someone like that to demand a trade would leave a very bad impression.

His task of expanding his network wasn't completed yet.

It wouldn't be good to immediately offend the young miss of a major family right from the start.

So, on the second day, Lin Xiao went to a five-hundred-year-old shop named Duobao Pavilion, which was reputed to have the best credibility in all of Yuanling City, to place his order.